Presby-Musings

Today is the first Sunday of the season of Lent.  Lent is a season in the life of the Church that essentially is the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter--give or take a few days.  40 is a significant number in the Bible.  It denotes a time of refinement or preparation.   In Genesis, it rained 40 days and nights in the time of Noah.  In Exodus the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.  As we'll read today, Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness for 40 days before he began his ministry and was tempted during that time...   If you aren't a Christian or if you are new to Christianity, you might get thrown off by the word "worship."  It shouldn't.  Everyone worships something---even if you aren't a Christian.  Whatever gets the majority of your attention, your devotion, your time, money, energy and love---that's what you worship.  Christians say that they worship God, or more specifically Jesus, who we beli...

This week I'll be continuing the sermon series "Together," an in-depth study on my church's core values.  Throughout the series we have asked very serious questions to each of our core values---values that we call "The Five Things."  These questions have served to get us focused on what is truly important for us to know about our values in order for us to more effectively accomplish our vision to be the kind of church that reflects and reveals the unselfish love of Christ to the world. The sermon this week is centered around the fourth of our Five Things: Love.  And the question that we are going to be asking is a simple one, but one that carries with it some series implications as to how we live our lives both as individuals and as a community of faith. Are We Loving God , Loving People and Loving the World?  Jesus said this: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will kn...

This week I am beginning a new sermon series for the month of September entitled, "Together."  This series focuses on my church's core values, what we call the "Five Things."  A couple of years ago, I preached a series on the Five Things to introduce them as the "how" that enables us to accomplish the "why." Sounds awesome, right?  And sort of vague. So here's what I mean:  The "why" is our purpose, our vision as a church.  We believe that we are called to "Reflect and Reveal the Unselfish Love of Christ to the World."  The shorthand version of this is, "Know Jesus, Show Jesus." How we accomplish our vision is by focusing on our core values, our Five Things:  Worship, Pray, Grow, Love & Serve.  What we have discovered is that when we actually do pay attention to the Five Things, God has done some amazing things in, among and through our church. Funny how that works, eh? You might be wondering w...